Leslie Odom Jr reveals incredible backstory behind ‘rockstar scientist’ character in Knives Out sequel-Louise Griffin-Entertainment – Metro

Leslie Odom Jr has revealed his character in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is actually based on a real-life person, after he delved into the history books to find a ‘Black rockstar scientist’.

The actor plays scientist Lionel Touissant and forms part of an all-star cast, including Daniel Craig, Kate Hudson, Janelle Monae, Kathryn Hahn, Dave Bautista and Ethan Hawke in the Rian Johnson directed movie.

Chatting to Metro.co.uk about his unique preparation alongside co-star Kathryn, Leslie explained: ‘I was looking for a rockstar scientist, I was looking for Black rockstar scientists.

‘As an actor, I didn’t have a wealth of knowledge of who those people would be, to identify them. I did a little bit of research and I found this guy, Lonnie Johnson. People don’t necessarily know this, but he was a scientist for Nasa, a brilliant man, and he invented the Super Soaker [American brand of water guns].

‘He wasN doing an experiment for Nasa and he happened to invent this thing and became very, very wealthy. So I imagined Lonnie as Lionel’s grandfather. So I imagined Lionel would have a lot to live up to and that would be part of the tension of why he feels like, “I can’t really start over, I’ve come along this way.”

‘We work for this guy, we both are connected to this guy, Miles Bron, played by Edward Norton, who pulls our strings. He knows that we have these things that we want so desperately.’

Leslie opened up about the backstory behind his character (Picture: Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images)

Lonnie Johnson invented the Super Soaker (Picture: Thomas S. England/Getty Images)

‘We need him,’ Kathryn added, with Leslie agreeing: ‘We need him and so, because of that, he can pull us just slightly outside of our integrity whenever he chooses to.’

Johnson, 73, worked for Nasa on various different projects from 1972 to 1999, including the Air Force missions Lab, developing the nuclear power source for the Galileo mission to Jupiter and several weapons projects.

He first came up with the Super Soaker while working with the US Air Force. The product first hit shelves under a different name, the Power Drencher, in 1990.

In 2017, Johnson told Forbes of his earnings: ‘I can tell you that I received a royalty on sales, that the Super Soaker was the number one selling toy in the world and that between 1992 and 1995, it topped $1billion (£815m) in sales. Because of the success of the Super Soaker, Hasbro bought Larami.’

Kathryn stars as politician Claire Debella, the governor of Connecticut now running for the Senate.

She said of her preparation: ‘I mean, there’s a lot to draw from, clearly.

‘First and foremost it’s always in the script, all that you really need, all that I ever really need is right there in the script, so I took from there and of course drew from – I mean, there’s so much that’s happening.

‘So it was not very hard to look outside and between that and Jenny Eagan’s incredible costuming, I knew I could find the unspoken that Rian had in his mind and meet her with what I had in mind and what he had in mind in an unspoken way, and kind of find her in that in between space.’

Former Bond actor Daniel returns as detective Benoit Blanc in the new movie.

When tech billionaire Miles Bron invites his friends for a getaway on his private Greek island, and someone ends up dead, Benoit is quickly on the case.

Knives Out is on Netflix now.

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